Photo: PUNIT PARANJPE / AFP
“We have identified the cause of the accident and the persons responsible“, Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw explained to the ANI news agency, but added that it was not “appropriate” to give details before a final report of the investigation is prepared.
The accident occurred on Friday near Balasore, in the eastern state of Odisha., left at least 288 dead and 900 wounded. Ashwini said that a “change that occurred during the electronic interlock” caused the accident, a term that refers to a signaling system that allows traffic to be controlled.
“We will find out who did it and how the accident happened after an investigation,” he added. The Times of India newspaper, citing a preliminary investigation, said on Sunday that “human error” may have caused one of the worst train accidents in the country.
School turned into a morgue with hundreds of corpses
The Coromandal Express that connected Calcutta with Chennai had been given the green light to run on the main track but was diverted due to human error onto a track where a freight train was stopped, according to this newspaper.
The passenger convoy collided with this second train at a speed of 130 km/h. Three carriages were left lying on the adjacent track, hitting the rear of a passenger express from Bangalore to Calcutta. This second collision was the one that caused the most damage, notes The Times of India.
A secondary school near the scene of the tragedy was turned into a makeshift morgue, where authorities accompany families to try to identify their loved ones.
The tragedy occurred near Balasore, a city in the state of Odisha (east), about 200 kilometers from the regional capital Bhubaneswar.
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